don't let the bed bugs bite
by reallyhatebananas
Summary: Tom wasn't always so afraid of death.


**A/N:** A sort of mix of poetry and prose. No plot really, just having some fun with stream of consciousness and odd formatting. And poor Tom's befuddled mind, of course. What do you think?

**Disclaimer:** If I owned Harry Potter and Co., no _way _would I have allowed the series to have so many plot holes. Then again, what's fanfiction for?

**/i::think::therefore::i::am\**

He's thrashing, wailing, twisting sweat-soaked sheets around himself.

(he has nightmares)

It's—it's a parasitic relationship he has with his dreams. Night terrors, Mrs. Cole calls them, giving him a soothing drink of warm milk when he wakes. She pets his hand and tucks the blanket in and _she doesn't understand_

::the dreams::they take::away::hisverysoul::

they latch onto him sucking sucking sucking until there's no _him_ left—

_He's the host_

_They leech him dry _

_And when he screams_

_No-one asks why_

::We are nothing; less than nothing and dreams. We are only what might have been, and must wait upon the tedious shores of Lethe millions of ages before we have existence, and a name::

/sometimes

sometimes tom thinks that he really is nothing but the fear he feels at night while trapped in his self-inflicted hell\

But then again, who's to say what's just a dream? Maybe _this _is the dream; maybe one day he'll wake a butterfly and prove Descartes wrong. Maybe his _dreams_ are the reality of life. If that's the case, Tom sorely regrets being born.

(row, row, row your boat—life is but a dream)

Tom's always hated children's songs. Not an innocent origin among them.

..._to sleep… perchance__ to dream…_

Shakespeare's not much better. Far too morbid _as if life isn't bad enough already_ though his comedies aren't bad. Amusing, though far too dramatic and rather cliché.

Sometimes he thinks that fear is all he has.

=/(but::then)\=

then he goes to sleep and wakes up screaming

blankets wrapped around his struggling form

like a :::straightjacket:::

_maybe he's crazy_

[[|I'm not mad|]]

And so the nights are full of fear, _yelling__ thrashing please-stop fear_, but when the sun comes all is well. The bone-deep cold is warmed and he's no longer alone, shivering in the darkness. Tom studies hard, spending every waking moment with his books because the other children have been scared away by his cold, cold eyes.

-he'd like to see their eyes after seeing what he sees-

He immerses himself in the world of knowledge; cold hard _facts _and _methods_ and _solutions_ to every problem he encounters. There's no opinions, no tangibility, immaterial like his dreams but knowledge is calm and steadfast and absolutely _willnotfailhim_.

Tom

adores

it.

While other boys and girls are running and shrieking with childish laughter he's deep in the bowels of the orphanage, doing arithmetic and working out sums and reading reading _reading_ every book he can get his hands on, from the fairy tales to religious works to dusty tomes of ancient practices long forgotten.

he reads of latin and myths and dreams and philosophy

_he reads of plato and socrates and confucius and acrion_

.:Cogito ergo sum:.

He translates Latin into French, a language he admires for its beauty and delicacy, ethereal like the gospel threads of Myrtle's hair and the haunting notes of an organ's tune…

{Je pense donc je suis}

…into English with its proper sounds and grammar, cold and hard and bare like the facts over which he obsesses.

\I think, therefore I am/

Daylight wanes and he has his knowledge now, his security blanket, so he's suitably upset when the nightmares come again.

With night comes the flickering of candles and the velvety-black of the sky, and Tom does not want to be subjected to the terror of dreams. Not again.

his roommate speaks and so he listens

He speaks of legends, of Artemis and golden stags and thunderbolts and poisoned drinks. He speaks of power and angels and demons and love. He speaks of messengers with wings and half-man-half-serpents and controllers of the Underworld. He speaks of legends and terror and Loki with his world of chaos.

Tom learns.

::he wakes next morning with a deep cut on his palm, one that mirrors an injury inflicted during last night's dream::

The cycle repeats.

_Psychosomatic injuries, the doctor says, trauma, stress, nothing to worry about._

[next night it's a bone that breaks instead]

Tom

worries

Knowledge has failed him; facts are not a shield. Listening won't save his life. He turns to religion, to higher beings, to praying in supplication as his insides quake with fear.

_If a tree falls alone in the forest does it still make a sound?_

No, Tom decides, it does not, because a small boy brings nothing but silence and loneliness. A stone dropped into water makes no ripples, no spreading effects. Nothing makes a difference in the end and _nothing really matters_.

he prays

-nobody hears him-

Night is a terror unsurpassed.

Dreams he fears with a passion never felt before.

If there is no _higher power_ then there is no judgment, no heaven or hell, no afterlife to speak of. Death is not

::the next great adventure::

_It is nothing but emptiness, black and cold like the nighttime he so dreads, a forever comprised of nightmares and fear._

He will not be subjected to that.

{{and so he splits his soul instead}}

**/i ::think::therefore::i::am\**


End file.
